Original Pilipino Music?

I’ve been to countless choral competitions in auditoriums across the nation and many symphonies and musicals at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. That’s not to say I’m a total snot who admires the “bouquet” wafting out of a brandy sifter as I arrange my smoking jacket while perusing the latest political cartoon from the New Yorker. Far from it. In fact, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, and Charice Pempengco are dueling it out of my car CD changer right now. But I have never attended even a single pop concert event in Manila.

 

I’ve never attended because local singers aren’t producing anything worth crap. It’s nothing but one bad cover after another of “Love Moves in Mysterious Ways”, sappy love songs, and wrist-slitting interpretations of “Time of My Life”. I swear if I have to hear another local “artist“, I’m going to strangle a cat and stuff it up my ass. As for foreign acts… Well, I’m not crazy enough to shell out several thousand pesos and my ovaries to see a miniature version of Beyonce with binoculars.

 

Chuvaness wrote an interesting piece about why foreign concert events are so expensive to stage in Manila. When I jumped to the actual news article that triggered it, I couldn’t help but kick a puppy in disgust.

 

In an interview with ABS-CBN News on Friday, Alcasid seconded Filipino pop diva Kuh Ledesma’s suggestion to regulate concerts of international recording artists in the Philippines.

He said higher tax rates must apply to international artists who wish to hold concerts here.

“We must push for higher taxes on foreign shows and lowering of taxation sa local concerts,” he said.

 

So… let me get this straight: Filipinos already have to shell out TWICE what Singaporeans would pay, just to hear the abominable screechings of Justin Bieber, and you want them to pay MORE? Could it be because you want to discourage foreign acts from coming to Manila? Gee, I wonder why?

• Could it be because you represent an organization of talentless, second-rate, trying hard, copycats?
• And that the aforementioned copycats are threatened by REAL artists?
• And to avoid drawing attention to the fact that Nokia’s ring tones have more originality than their “songs”?

It’s called competition. And in a free economy, it brings out the best for the consumer. Those of us that actually want to listen to good music. You whine and whine about how nobody seems to support Original Pilipino Music or OPM. Well, we might start supporting it if it were actually ORIGINAL Pilipino Music. Artists that are actually writing world-class music, or performing for a GLOBAL audience, and not just the cows and chickens in their barrio.

So you know what, Ogie and Kuh, although I respect and admire your combined body of work, your lack of artistic backbone is appalling. Fuck you very much.